


There Is No Rain on Omega

by ThreeWhiskeyLunch



Series: Tommy-Boy [1]
Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Friends to Lovers, Frottage, M/M, Mentions of Death, Mentions of Violence, Mutual Pining, Rare Pairings, Walnuts Being Walnuts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-01
Updated: 2018-05-01
Packaged: 2019-04-30 22:31:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14506890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThreeWhiskeyLunch/pseuds/ThreeWhiskeyLunch
Summary: If Zaeed were to have a type (and he definitely has a type), it would not be quiet, somber Thomas Shepard. And yet he finds himself fascinated, following the commander’s movements through the ship, or on a mission, anywhere really. He tells himself he’s learning the man’s mannerisms, that he needs to know such things on the battlefield. By the time they hit the collector ship he has Shepard’s fighting technique down to a waltz in his head—singularity, warp, watch the goons fly—could probably go through a firefight with his eyes closed and know where Shepard is at any moment. He doesn’t need to watch. And yet he still does.Goddamn the man.





	There Is No Rain on Omega

**Author's Note:**

  * For [beetle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/gifts), [ellebeedarling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellebeedarling/gifts), [thegrumblingirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegrumblingirl/gifts), [potionsmaster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/potionsmaster/gifts).



> [Playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvRr4ELzSIfhf-X4EPwtP1xgC_i4fx_T_) on YouTube.
> 
> Gift given to the ones who fed this crazygonuts insanity.

Here's what he remembers (it isn't much). Vido with a gun to his head. Hands holding him down. A knee pressing into his gut. The back of his boots kicking at the ground as he tries to push away. Rain falling on his face (but it was Omega, there couldn’t have been rain). A blinding flash as the gun fires.

Pain.

Sorrow.

Fear.

The fear surprises him. Even years later, staring down the barrel of another gun, held down by a thick, metal beam, with fire blazing at his back, he is by no means ready to give up.

But this isn’t why he capitulates. Not fear, but a recognition of his own relentless, insane obsession. He’s never been one for letting emotions get the better of him, and yet, here on Zorya, he’s done just that. Shepard’s grim, disappointed face is a fitting bookend for twenty years he can never get back. Twenty years he could have been living instead of chasing.

Twenty years is a long time in the life of a man. Not so long in the grand scheme of things. It is, however, enough to make a difference in one man’s life.

Admitting he’s an insufferable arse doesn’t chaff half as much as admitting he’s wrong. But he’s not above such things.

Old dog. New tricks.

~~~~~

He can’t get a handle on Shepard. Enigma doesn’t begin to describe the man who’s risen from the dead. (Zaeed wonders to himself why they didn’t just call it the goddamn Jesus Christ Project and be done with it. But then, maybe that would have made it just little too real for everyone’s own good.) He’s nothing like the Alliance recruitment posters depict. There’s nothing shiny about this Shepard. He’s withdrawn, sullen, often lost in thought. Zaeed notes how Garrus often watches Shepard from the corner of his eye, as if comparing and contrasting him to the man he knew two years before and finding him somehow lacking. Or maybe there’s something that hadn’t been there before. He wonders what it is. But not enough to ask.

If Zaeed were to have a type (and he definitely has a type), it would not be quiet, somber Thomas Shepard. And yet he finds himself fascinated, following the commander’s movements through the ship, or on a mission, anywhere really. He tells himself he’s learning the man’s mannerisms, that he needs to know such things on the battlefield. By the time they hit the collector ship he has Shepard’s fighting technique down to a waltz in his head—singularity, warp, watch the goons fly—could probably go through a firefight with his eyes closed and know where Shepard is at any moment. He doesn’t _need_ to watch. And yet he still does.

Goddamn the man.

After Zorya, Shepard doesn’t come down to Zaeed’s cargo hold as much. He refuses to meet Zaeed’s eye when he does, sharp blue eyes cast down to the ground, or lingering on anything and everything in the cramped room. Everything except the man in the worn yellow armor. That he comes around at all is more than a little surprising.

That Zaeed wishes he’d come down more often offers up far more of a surprise.

After all, Tom Shepard is _not_ his type.

~~~~~

He’s not looking for him, but he finds Shepard anyway, leaning against a crate and smoking, staring at the powered-down body of the geth they’d brought back from the Reaper. Zaeed had changed into sweats, keyed up and needing to take out his growing—definitely not sexual—frustrations on _something_. And the punching bag Jacob had hung in the corner of the shuttle bay was the only practical thing that held any sort of appeal at the moment.

He pauses just outside the elevator for far too long, indecisive about moving forward or retreating back to the elevator. The decision is made for him, however, when the door slides shut and he can hear the motor churn, carrying the car back up into the ship. He sighs and drapes his towel over his shoulder, rolling his eyes at himself in disgust over his dithering. He scuffs his shoes on the floor to announce his presence, although fairly certain Shepard already knows he’s there. In answer, Shepard flicks ash from his cigarette, never for one moment taking his eyes off the AI.

Zaeed settles in beside him, leaning back on the crate and snagging one of Shepard’s smokes from the packet that rests on top. He gets a look of resignation in return, and a hand holding out a lit lighter that Zaeed leans down toward. After only a moment, they both turn their attention to the hunk of metal and tubes that lays a few meters away, smoking silently.

Eventually, Shepard points at the AI, cigarette glowing between his two fingers. “That’s part of my armor.”

Zaeed can see the red stripe down the thing’s right arm and the barely discernible N7 insignia over the right chest. “What’dya mean?”

Shepard’s voice turns hard. “I mean that’s from my goddamn armor. From when I—from Alchera.”

Zaeed hadn’t been along to the Reaper ship, hasn’t seen the AI until now, although it’s all the crew are talking about. He studies it carefully, and while it's powered down he's still not anxious to get too close. Before signing on with Shepard, he’d had exactly one encounter with the geth, out in the Terminus, and barely made it out alive thanks to a couple Colossus that gave him no end of trouble. That this particular AI is wearing a piece of Shepard’s armor is highly unsettling just for himself. He can’t imagine what sort of hell might be running through the other man’s mind.

“Where the bloody hell did it get that?” Zaeed asks.

Shepard only shrugs, crushing the cigarette out under his boot. He sighs and pushes the heels of his hands into his eyes, rubbing hard and then brushing his hands down his face as if to erase everything that's happened to him. The implication is clear: this geth was one that had been on the hunt for Shepard’s body. For what purpose, Zaeed can only guess at, but it doesn’t bode well for Shepard’s clearly stretched-thin sanity.

“You need a drink,” Zaeed says. It’s unwise, he knows. But the words are out of his mouth before he can rethink the invitation. “I’ve got some whiskey I’ve been saving. None of that Cerberus swill in the lounge.” He nudges at Shepard with his elbow, hoping to prod him into agreeing to this Not Very Wise Idea in spite of himself.

Shepard’s eyes are red and bleary when he cuts a glance over. He looks tired. He looks like one good shot of whiskey will put him out. His shoulders sag and that’s about the sorriest sight Zaeed’s ever had the chance to see, but he nods his head once and makes to get up from the crate, tucking his cigarettes into his pocket. “Yeah, okay. Only…” He shoves his hands deeper into his hoodie, “Can you bring it up? To my...to the loft? I’m dead tired and you don’t have anywhere comfortable to sit. Unless...I guess, we could go to the lounge.” Which seems to be the last place Shepard wants to be, if the sour look that passes over his face is anything to go by.

“I’ll bring it up,” Zaeed says, wincing at how fucking eager he is.

Such a Very Bad Idea.

~~~~~

Zaeed’s first thought when entering Shepard’s loft is less along the lines of _Nice place_ and more along the lines of _What the hell was Cerberus thinking, putting a goddamn thousand gallon fish tank on a goddamn ship?_ It’s clear Shepard has no interest in filling the tank with anything other than books. The glass has been removed and bookshelves installed, or rather, planks and blocks of scrap metal have been constructed inside the left side of the tank, with assorted bits of armor thrown in a jumble into the right. The books, Zaeed notes in a quick glance, seem to be from anywhere and everywhere, many in Council languages he recognizes but never in a million years would attempt to learn to read. He’s never seen Shepard looking at, or shopping for, books, except once on the Citadel in a convenience store when he’d stop for smokes and had thumbed through a paperback sitting next to the counter, a faraway expression on his face. It had been soon after he'd been picked up on Omega, still getting to know the commander. Zaeed’s impression at the time had been of someone who just wanted to feel the pages rustling along one’s fingertips, rather than actual curiosity in the content. Maybe, he'd thought at the time, that's what death does for some. Makes them appreciate the mundane.

Shepard stands at his desk, scanning through what looks to be an endless scroll of messages at his terminal. He’s engrossed in something, so Zaeed takes a moment to look around, noting the large bed and comfortable-looking sofa. There’s a shuttered skylight—Zaeed wonders if Cerberus had lost their fucking minds when they put _that_ over where someone who’d been spaced would sleep—and an N7 helmet on another, smaller desk. He spies a couple glasses and heads down to the sofa, twisting the cap off the whiskey as he goes.

“Sorry. Hackett,” Shepard says, by way of explanation for ignoring Zaeed when he’d come in.

“No worries.” He pours out two deep measures of the whiskey, handing one off to Shepard as he sits with a heavy sigh.

“Thanks.” Shepard taps his glass to Zaeed’s by way of a toast, then sticks his nose into the glass and takes a deep breath, inhaling the aroma of the whiskey with closed eyes. “Shit. You weren’t kidding.”

It’s fifty-year Islay single malt scotch. Not that he’ll be telling Shepard that. And he sure as hell isn’t going to bring up that he’d intended to drink it once Vido was dead, carrying it from port to port and job to job like some goddamn souvenir. Saving fifty-year scotch seems like a stupid idea considering the mess they’re in at the moment. Instead, he just nods and sips and sighs because it tastes like nothing he’s ever had before and probably never will again.

Shepard looks over at him like he knows everything Zaeed doesn’t tell him about the whiskey, but he says nothing, having another taste with a hum of appreciation. They sit and drink in silence, the only sound that of the engines far below their feet. Shepard lights another cigarette and hands the pack off to Zaeed and they sit and smoke and drink in a silence that is neither comfortable or uncomfortable, just simply is. Zaeed moves only to refill their glasses and Shepard moves only to lean forward, elbows resting on his knees, his gaze somewhere through the coffee table, beyond whatever is in this room.

“You know what I’ve never allowed myself to think since waking up twenty years ago?” Zaeed says and Shepard finally looks up, eyes glazed from whatever had been going through that thick head of his. Shepard shakes his head, rolling the tumbler between his palms, watching Zaeed carefully but saying nothing.

“I never asked myself ‘Why me?’ Maybe I should have. Maybe things would have turned out differently if I had. Hell. Never been one for too much introspection. Never saw the need for it.” Shepard’s eyebrows twitch, but otherwise remains silent and impassive. Zaeed sets the glass down on the coffee table with a sigh. “I never wanted to think about why I’d survived when so many others wouldn’t have.”

He has Shepard’s full attention now. The man’s body tenses as he turns slightly toward him and Zaeed’s suspicions are confirmed about what’s been endlessly circling through Shepard’s head. Not that he can say he blames him. If someone had seen fit to spend all those credits to bring him back from the dead, he’d have to wonder at the confounding Why of it all.

“Someone found me, lying in the gutter on Omega, bleeding out—” _blood washed away by the rain, but there is no rain on Omega_ “—face fucked up. Doctor later told me if they’d been two minutes later, I’d be gone. And ya know, I wanted to know who that person was, not because I wanted to thank them, but because whoever it had been needed a goddamn good slap for putting their own lives at risk for some shithead they didn’t know.”

“What did you do? After all...that?”

“Got the hell off Omega. Left everything behind except Jessie. Didn’t want Vido getting word that my place had been emptied out. At least I had the foresight to keep a hidden account.” Shepard’s lips turn up slightly at that, as if he expected no less of the man sitting next to him and Zaeed smirks back at him. It wasn’t much that he’d set aside, having spent far too freely the credits that he and Vido had been pulling in. He’d been young and stupid and confident he’d live forever. But it had been enough to bribe a couple contacts so he could set himself up as an independent contractor. Enough to get him through. Enough to get far away from Vido and the Blue Suns for a time.

“And then?” Shepard asks.

Zaeed sets his glass down on the table, the golden-brown liquid swirling as he twists it this way and that. “And then I got down to business. Carved a name for myself on the backs of those too stupid to not get outta my way. I left...unfinished business. People that I cared for. But the life I lived, it was best to keep them out of it.”

“Can I ask who?”

The lie is on the tip of his tongue. He’s never admitted to anyone he has a son, not even to Tristiana. His trust in her had only gone so far, after all. He doesn’t know why Shepard is different. Maybe because he’s been tossed around the galaxy as much, or more, than Zaeed has by the whims of fate. Maybe because he’s lying in the belly of the dog right this very minute, surrounded by a nefarious crew he doesn’t fully trust, spied and reported on, pulled at from all sides by people who ask too much of one man. Maybe because he’s tired of trusting no one and would like for once in his life be able to know without a shadow of a doubt that someone else has his back.

“I have a son,” Zaeed says, and holds the glass tight in his hands to keep his fingers from shaking. Hearing the stutter of nerves, he holds his breath, willing his heart to slow. The words are so utterly foreign to speak they lay thick on his tongue, as if someone else had shoved the words in his mouth and made him speak them. “Bain. His mother and I...we split before he was born. Can’t say as I blame her. Probably saved her life. After Vido tried to kill me, I tried to send her credits and she’d just send it back without a word. Lost track of them eventually. One day they just up and bloody well disappeared. Bain would have been about ten at the time. He’d be twenty-three now.” Zaeed swallows, feeling Shepard’s intense gaze, unable to look at him, unable to admit he sometimes does a double-take seeing a kid about that age on Omega or Illium or wherever the hell he is and thinking it could be Bain.

“I could look for him,” Shepard says, “in the Spectre database.”

Why is he not surprised Shepard would offer? It’s what the man does—solving everyone else’s problems but his own. It would be a lie to say he isn’t tempted. To know for once that his boy is alive, at the very least. Maybe where he is at the most. But to what end? Zaeed has no illusions for a happy family reunion. He doesn’t know what Bain’s mother told him about his old man, and has no desire to wake him from whatever illusions she’s painted be it good, or more than likely, bad.

So he shakes his head, cutting his eyes over to see the look of earnest intent in Shepard’s eyes. “That’d be a waste of your Spectre resources. Best to let that sleeping varren lie.”

Shepard’s brow draws down as he frowns and looks like he’s about to protest, but then reconsiders and looks down at his empty glass. Zaeed studies the outline of his face, the scruff of beard at his jaw, the bags under his captivating blue eyes, unkempt brown hair curling at his neck.

He mentally shakes his head and sets the glass down with conversation-ending finality. “I should let you go.”

He stands before he can change his mind, the whiskey humming pleasantly in his veins. He’s halfway to the door when Shepard says, “Hey, Zaeed.”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

Zaeed hits the panel to open the door. “Talk more later, Shepard.”

~~~~~

Zaeed’s not the only one on the ship, he suspects, that takes it personally when Shepard goes off to Aratoht alone. Garrus abandons his meticulous mother-henning of his cannon for once, pacing the short length of the mess hall to bother one and all with his muttering and cursing. Jack emerges out of her hidey-hole on a regular basis, stomping back when there’s been no word. After two days, everyone’s on edge, congregating in the mess around cold cups of coffee, tight-lipped and cross. He doesn’t even want to think what might happen if Shepard never comes back and they triy to finish this goddamn mission without him.

He especially doesn’t want to think about lost opportunities and things unsaid that are probably best left that way. Nor what idiocy will spill from his traitorous mouth when— _if_ —Shepard comes back.

Miranda running from her office to the elevator catches everyone’s attention. And then they feel the engine core firing up to full power, vibrating under their feet. Garrus and Chakwas are next, running full tilt through the mess and Zaeed follows on their heels, not giving a shit if there’s room on the elevator or not, he’s gonna fucking be on it, goddamnit. He hears Kelly try and command the rest of the crew to remain calm and has a quiet laugh to himself at how poorly that goes before the doors close on Grunt, Tali, and Jack’s disappointed faces.

If there’s going to be an extraction team, he’s damned sure he’s going to put himself on it and to hell with the rest of ‘em.

~~~~~

Six hours to the Omega Four relay. Zaeed tries not to take it as a countdown clock as much as a ‘get your shit in working order’ clock. But he’s already cleaned his armor inside and out, leaving it lined up along the wall to dry. All of his guns are spotless and oiled (three sniper rifles, four rifles, two pistols all laid out on his workbench that he trails his fingers over, worrying over which ones to take). He’s sorted through his crate, purging probably more than he should out the trash compactor—the only time that thing has come in personally handy the entire time he’s been on the ship. He retrieves his knives from the impromptu bull’s eye on the wall, sharpening them before storing them in their case and tucking them away in the crate. He returns to the guns, running through the pros and cons of each before selecting the Mantis and Vindicator and packing the rest away in their carrying cases and then finally into the crate.

Last to go is Jessie. He can’t help the silent apology that he hasn’t figured out how to fix her yet, already planning out where he could look for parts once they’re back from this damned suicide mission.

It hits him then. That this really could be the end of the line for one Zaeed Massani. Not that he doesn’t consider every mission dangerous, that it could be the last. But before that’s always been a theoretical. Whereas this just seems a bit more...real. Everything with the Collectors and the Reapers feels much more final than anything that’s come before.

Still, it wouldn’t hurt to send a message to Kresvan on Omega with a list of parts. Just in case.

He’s in the middle of doing just that—squinting over the magazine release trying to make out the serial number—when he hears a tap at the door. The knocking rules out Jack and Grunt, who barge in whenever they feel like, and Miranda, who always has EDI announce her presence like a goddamn queen. No one else bothers to come down to his cargo bay.

No one but Shepard, that is. He’s never met anyone so aware of other people’s personal space as Shepard is, no doubt a reflection of the man’s own values in that respect. It’s something Zaeed has come to appreciate about the man.

He palms the door open to find Shepard looking like he’s goddamn lost in the woods, his face hangdog, his eyes worried. In one hand is the half-drunk bottle of fifty-year scotch that Zaeed had forgotten in his urge to flee Shepard’s loft, along with two glasses in the other hand.

Shepard seems almost surprised when the door opens, startled into raising the bottle in front of Zaeed. “Seems a shame to let this…” He lets _‘go to waste’_ remain unsaid, but it hangs heavy between them and Zaeed jerks his head to invite Shepard in, wondering why he’s here and not hanging out with Garrus or Joker.

He watches Shepard survey the room, noting the changes that have occured since he’s last visited. The krogan helmet, the Verikaan (he had spent far too long of a time debating whether he shouldn't just give it to Shepard to add to the collection he'd seen up in his loft and then had decided to not since it seemed too personal of a gift), Jessie, everything packed away, the room almost back to how it had been before Zaeed had moved in.

“You’ve packed,” Shepard says. He seems stunned at the realization, as if it hasn’t occurred that this whole mess will come to an end at some point in the very near future. Which just makes Zaeed feel a little sorry that he has, indeed, been putting his shit away.

He doesn’t know what to say to that, so he just shrugs and moves into the room. Shepard follows, looking around at his seating choices, ruling everything out (the office chair, a crate) but the cot that he slumps down on with a sigh that reflects the weight of the galaxy that rests on his shoulders.

Shepard does a bang-up job of balancing the two glasses in one hand while pouring out the whiskey. The bottle is set down on the floor and one glass held up to Zaeed, who’s in the middle of considering his own seating options. Roll the chair over? But he hates that fucking chair. Five minutes in it and his back aches. He could sit on a crate. On the other side of the goddamn room. He very nearly decides just to stand, but Shepard has settled in on his cot, propping himself with Zaeed’s only pillow, looking like he’s not going anywhere soon and what’s Zaeed going to do? Loom over him?

He rolls his eyes. _Just sit on the goddamn cot._

Shepard seems oblivious to Zaeed’s dilemma, barely acknowledging when he sits down with a grunt next to him. Zaeed’s been around the other man long enough now to know that faraway look in his eyes. He’s off somewhere else, chewing and mulling and working himself up into a lather over something. Any other day, Zaeed would wait him out, let him come to terms with whatever’s got him turning tumbleweeds in his head. But the mission weighs heavily. They only have so much time before they hit the relay and his head is full of shit he’s not really sure he wants to say.

Before he can prod, however, Shepard turns to examine him closely. “Zorya kinda messed me up mentally as far as you’re concerned,” Shepard says with a bluntness Zaeed doesn’t expect, but probably should considering. “I did some research when we got back and you’re right. Vido is an asshole. I’m not sorry I made the decision to rescue the factory workers, but I am sorry Vido got away. I...I want to help, if I can. To catch up to him. Once we—I mean, if we…”

“Survive this goddamn suicide mission.”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know about you, Shepard, but I fully intend to get out of this fucking mess alive.” Considering how many of Zaeed’s other missions have ended with only him as the survivor, he adds, “And the rest of this... _diverse_...crew. Which includes your sorry goddamn ass. So have a care with how you throw around those goddamn ‘if’s’.”

Shepard blinks at him, startled like a deer in headlights for a moment. But then some of the tension eases from his shoulders and the corners of his mouth curl up in the tiniest of smiles. “Yeah. Okay.” He slouches back on the cot, the glass of whiskey resting on his stomach, moving up and down with the rhythm of his breath.

Zaeed, on the other hand, sits tense and off-kilter. For one, Thomas Shepard is sitting on his goddamn cot _like he fucking belongs there_. And for two: “What the fuck did you mean: ‘messed me up mentally as far as you’re concerned’?”

Shepard blinks quickly several times and Zaeed wonders if the man had forgotten what he’d said. He glances over at Zaeed somewhat guiltily, his cheeks pinkening as he frowns. “I just...uh…” The pink in his cheeks deepens to such a deep red that Zaeed stares at him in quiet disbelief. He can’t remember the last time someone blushed that fiercely in front of him. “Just...forget it.”

“Like hell,” Zaeed grumbles, which causes the frown lines between Shepard’s eyebrows to deepen even further. He casts a guarded glance over at Zaeed. The look cuts him somewhere deep, down where trust is built and sustained, down where he doesn’t let anyone go anymore. “What the hell are you doing here, Shepard?”

The other man sits up with a jerk of movement, leaning forward to set his glass on the floor. Instead of standing as Zaeed expects, he settles his elbows on his knees and covers his face with his hands. Shepard whispers, “I’m tired of…” He stops himself, shakes his head and then groans with a frustration born of weeks and months of being tamped down, controlled by pure force of will. It’s a sound Zaeed knows only too well. “I didn’t want to be alone. And I can’t—” he points to the door, his eyes pleading with Zaeed to understand “—none of them know what it’s like. You’re the only one. Or, at least…” He sighs and sinks down into himself, closing those beautiful blue eyes away from Zaeed’s view.

“Know what _what’s_ like, Tom?”

“To have it all taken away. To have no one. Nothing. I need... _something. Someone_. I can’t. I can’t do this. It’s all well and good for Cerberus to bring me back without my consent so I can be their whipping boy,” sarcasm cuts through his voice, hard and sharp as ice. “God forbid I should have a mind of my own. _Needs_ of my own. I’m so fucking—” He growls, fingers pressing into his temples, then through his hair to tug at the roots.

“And what is it you need?” Such a bad idea to ask. Zaeed has a suspicion where Shepard is going, and it’s not like he hasn’t helped someone else scratch an itch before. Hell, he has a nine-month-old itch that could do with some coarse sandpaper right about now. If Shepard has something in mind, Zaeed wishes by god he’d just come out and say it. Because he’s goddamned certain he’d be willing to do pretty much anything for the man right about now, his own feelings be damned.

“ _You_ ,” Shepard whispers, speaking down toward the floor. “I need…Damnit, Zaeed. I need you. I want _you_. I don’t understand why. It’s completely irrational. Miranda. Jack. Thane. They’ve all—But I told them all no because...Because all I can think about is you.” Then he finally looks at Zaeed, with an intensity Zaeed’s never seen directed at him.

It confuses him. Makes his head swim. He looks down into the forgotten glass of whiskey that he rests on his knee. For something to do, he swallows it down and sets the glass aside, trying to think and not able to get around Shepard’s words. It’s no secret half the crew would sleep with Shepard at the drop of a hat (and the other half is lying). Shepard just admitted he could have his pick of the lot of them. And yet, here he sits on Zaeed’s shitty old cot, so close to zero hour they can taste it. However much Zaeed wants to find the dishonesty in the other man’s words, if only to save himself and the cold, dead heart he’s locked away, he hears only truth. And he hates himself for it. For his need to believe.

_Bloody hell. Completely irrational indeed._

“Damnit, Tom.”

“I’m sorry—”

“Shut the fuck up.” He leans forward before he can think twice, grasping Shepard’s shoulder and twisting him, pressing his mouth to Shepard’s, an almost chaste kiss if it weren’t so hard. Shepard’s hand immediately holds the back of Zaeed’s head, keeping him in place, holding him tighter as he opens his mouth and invites him in with a soft moan and warm lips and wet tongue. Zaeed’s breath shakes as he kisses him deeper, harder still, fingers trembling in Shepard’s hair, surprised at the silky feel of it.

Shepard shifts, twisting further into his arms, pressing him back against the wall as he swings a leg over Zaeed’s lap, never once breaking the kiss as he sits, holding him down. He’s like a caged animal unleashed, hungry and wild with built-up overthinking. Zaeed runs his hands down Shepard’s back, down to his arse, pressing him closer, feeling his growing hardness as he grinds down. He’s lost in the sensation of lips and hands, Shepard’s knees tightening around his hips, warm body pressed to his chest, his own cock aching underneath his trousers.

He slides awkwardly sideways, down onto the cot, his legs still hanging over the side, and Shepard follows him down, latched on and leaving no air between them. The kiss goes on and on, Shepard’s hands searching for the edges of Zaeed’s clothing, tugging at his shirt while still pressed against him so that only a few fingers find his skin, searching underneath for as much flesh as he can reach. Zaeed’s hands are busy on Shepard’s back and having more success at delving underneath clothing as he untucks Shepard’s shirt, grabs it up in bunches and pushes it up.

Shepard moans and finally breaks the kiss to sit up quickly and pull the shirt up and over his head, throwing it aside before returning to assault Zaeed’s neck with lips and tongue and teeth. He hits _that spot_ just at the curve between neck and shoulder that makes Zaeed squirm and twist underneath him, growling with lust and need, his hand on the back of his head to hold him in place because, fuck, it feels too goddamn good.

It’s been a long time since he’s been so aroused so quickly by someone. Maybe the months of mulling over Shepard have contributed, but Shepard knows what to do with his mouth and the almost desperate way he’s grinding his hips into Zaeed’s are all sending him beyond any sort of expectation he’d ever had of where this leads. The fact that most of their clothes are still on doesn’t alter his conviction that Shepard most likely knows what to do with the rest of his body as well, which is when he decides to just relax and let whatever happens happen. Having great sex with Shepard could be about the best way he can think of as a prelude to running a suicide mission.

Might as well make it last.

But if Shepard keeps doing what he’s doing, Zaeed’s going to come in his pants like a goddamn teenager. Which would be fine on other days. But not for quite possibly the last day of their lives.

“Tommy.”

“Mmm.” The man finally arches his back, but only to gain further access underneath Zaeed’s shirt, exposing his chest and all the scars and tattoos thereon. His mouth is still locked to Zaeed’s skin, teeth nibbling and then biting so hard it makes Zaeed gasp.

“Goddamnit. _Tommy_.”

“What?” He releases his skin and sits up, his pupils blown wide, but worried and wounded. “Do you not want—”

“Yes, I fucking want. Goddamnit, I want you. But this cot isn’t going to hold for what I want to do to you.” He imagines the cot breaking, sending them sprawling to the hard floor, his back already twinging in phantom pain. And while the idea of breaking a bed is a sort of romantic notion, he’s fairly certain it wouldn’t take much to send his old cot clattering to the floor with nothing to protect either of them except a thin layer of canvas. “And I refuse to fuck you on the goddamn floor. Your loft. Now.”

Shepard’s eyes light up, biting his bottom lip between his teeth as he looks down at Zaeed. “Yeah, alright.” He swings his legs over in one smooth motion and grabs up his shirt, pulling it over his head and down as Zaeed hauls himself up with a groan. Before he can tuck in his own shirt, Shepard grabs his hand and pulls him to the door and Zaeed has to laugh to himself because if anyone sees them (fuck, he hopes no one sees them) they’ll know exactly what they’re up to, what with Shepard’s mussed hair and swollen lips and Zaeed’s untucked shirt and the hickey that is no doubt blooming on his neck.

They make it to the elevator fine. Shepard punches the button for the loft, then turns and crowds back on Zaeed, pinning him to the wall while the door’s still shutting. Shepard doesn’t have time to even close the distance between them when Jack’s voice calls out, “Hold the damned elevator!” and her hand appears between the doors, keeping them from closing.

They jerk apart, Shepard flinging himself around and leaning against the cold wall of the elevator, his arms crossed and a scowl clouding his face as Jack forces herself in. It only takes a moment for her to take them in, her eyes raking over the both of them, a smirk curling her lip and her eyes lighting up with dawning realization at what she’s looking at. Her eyebrows twitch upward and her smile widens. She hits the button for the crew deck and doesn’t stop her staring, or her smirking, while Zaeed glowers back at her, daring her to say something, _anything_. But she doesn’t indulge him until the elevator finally slows and the doors open. “‘Bout fucking time,” she tosses over her shoulder as she leaves, her cackling laugh echoing off the walls.

Zaeed sighs and rolls his eyes, cutting a glance over at Shepard who just shrugs. “At least it wasn’t Grunt,” he says. “I’m not in the mood for the sex talk right now.”

Which just makes Zaeed snort. “Pretty sure Jack isn’t gonna keep it a secret. So you might have that talk sooner than later, Tom.”

Shepard smiles and takes a step forward, resting his forearms on the wall to either side of Zaeed’s head. “Yeah, well. Maybe I’ll die and then someone else will have to deal with him.”

_Don’t say that._ He thinks it, but he doesn’t say it. Shepard’s mouth is pressed to his, not as hard as before, but still hungry and insistent, and for all that, even more arousing. When the doors open again, this time at Shepard’s loft, Shepard releases him and steps backward out into the entry between the doors, his eyes sultry and inviting so that even if Zaeed didn’t want (and he definitely does want) he’d be hard pressed to resist. When Shepard pulls his shirt up over his head and drops it on the floor, it’s all Zaeed can do to not strip right there and just forget about that goddamn big bed he knows is on the other side of that door.

Instead, he stalks after Shepard, who still walks backward with a wicked grin, undoing the button on his trousers with one hand as he palms the door open with the other. His nipples are peaked in the chill air, a fine covering of dark chest hair leading downwards. Zaeed can see the hard line of him underneath his trousers as he rakes his gaze from top to bottom and a sort of hot-blooded anxiousness takes hold of him as Shepard steps backward into the loft, silhouetted against the soft, blue light of the defunct fish tank.

Once he’s inside and the door closes softly behind, Shepard is on him, pinning him to the door so hard Zaeed grunts. “Fuck, I want you,” Shepard mutters before he kisses him again, this time hard and unrelenting with his lust. Somehow they twist and turn toward the bed, clothes coming off in a trail from desperate, pressing hands. They halt when boots impede their trousers from complete removal, Shepard hopping and laughing as he bends, trying to unbuckle the clasps that hold them firmly in place.

Zaeed finally has to sit on the side of the bed to get his own boots off, barely managing to remove them before Shepard is on him, pushing him down onto the wide expanse of soft bed that any other time Zaeed would luxuriate in. But right now, in this moment, it’s all hands and body and— _fuck_ —Shepard’s lips and tongue moving downwards over his chest, down and down until he takes Zaeed in his warm, wet mouth, enveloping him, sending a shiver through his spine right into his balls. His hips jerk up of their own accord, a gasp breaking through his lips as Shepard sucks hard from bottom to top and back down so that Zaeed can feel his tip hit the back of Shepard’s throat. _Hell yes, he knows what to do with his mouth._

“Fuck, Tommy—”

Shepard’s only answer is a hum as fingers press his hips to the bed. Zaeed’s head falls back and he closes his eyes, lost in the sensation of Shepard’s warm, wet, swirling tongue, wondering silently why the fuck they haven’t done this before. All those lost moments in the last year spin through his head in a whirlwind: Shepard’s furtive ( _shy?_ ) glances at Zaeed through his bangs; all the times Zaeed watched Shepard move through the battlefield, Shepard’s biotics blazing and Zaeed’s gun firingfiringfiring when all he wanted to do was pin him to a wall and strip each piece of armor off; the times they’d be sitting in the mess and someone would crack a joke and Zaeed would look up to see Shepard laughing and their eyes would meet and Zaeed would have to remind himself to take a goddamn breath. It’s not fair to have this and then go off on a suicide mission, knowing how high the probability is that neither of them may return from it.

_Not fair to not have this either,_ Zaeed decides, carding his fingers through Shepard’s hair and grabbing hold to pull him up off him. Shepard crawls up with a wicked, yet still bashful grin, laying out over him so he can feel all of him chest to toe, his mouth moving a languid kiss over Zaeed’s lips while their hips move of their own accord in a luxurious rut.

“Want you,” Shepard whispers against his heated and flushed skin. So Zaeed twines his leg over Shepard’s, his hands firm on the other man’s waist, twisting them until Shepard lays beneath him. Shepard’s hands smooth down Zaeed’s back to his arse with a wanton groan, eyes closed and head back, which only serves to fuel Zaeed’s passion in a feedback loop, amplifying desire and weakness and hunger until it’s all he can do to focus and not be lost in the swelling tide. It’s all skin and mouths and hands and dicks and the licentious sounds coming from Shepard’s throat.

He forgets everything he’d wanted to do to Shepard, his only thought to bring him pleasure and fulfillment and fuck if he can remember what it is he even wants for himself beyond that simple thought. He tips and slides down to his side, bringing Shepard with him until they lay chest-to-chest and then grasps them both together, tugging and stroking with his hand until their stomachs are slick with cum and Shepard’s body transforms from taut and demanding and always completely on the brink to liquified tranquility in one smooth release of breath.

There have been few moments in his life that he wishes he could have captured and put in a bottle to preserve. Jessie aside, he’s never considered himself to be one for personal nostalgia. But when Shepard opens his eyes, they are clear and wide and so goddamn blue Zaeed’s heart thuds heavy in his chest and he knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that this one moment is firmly cemented in every cell in his body for as long as he’s goddamn fortunate to live. Everything about Thomas Shepard is over and above anyone Zaeed has ever known. He finds himself hard pressed to explain how he, a notorious mercenary and self-sufficient blowhard, ended up in Commander Thomas Shepard’s bed, naked and sweating while Shepard grins at him like Zaeed’s given him some sort of goddam gift.

“So what just happened here?” Zaeed asks, which, on immediate reflection, probably isn’t the most romantic of pillowtalk he can come up with. But he needs to know if this is just the two of them releasing some pent-up energy so he can dampen his expectations for anything in the future. If this is all that Shepard wants, then he can lie to himself and be fine with it, somehow make himself fine with it. But he needs to know, and he needs to know now.

Shepard studies him for a while. He doesn’t move away, but he doesn’t move closer either, seemingly content for the moment to share space without making a production about it. His thumb finds a particularly jagged scar on Zaeed’s arm to trace, worrying at it as he ponders the man at his side. Zaeed watches the emotions cross his face from surprise to thoughtfulness to a soft-hearted tenderness that he can’t imagine could be directed at him. He blinks several times and looks down briefly before pinning Zaeed again with that direct blue gaze. “I decided.”

Zaeed waits several moments for him to finish, eyebrows raised slightly in expectation. When not further explanation seems to be forthcoming, he says, “You decided.”

Shepard nods, as if it’s all as simple as that. “Yeah. I decided.”

It’s not the answer he expects, or even wants, but it intrigues him no end. “You decided what, exactly?”

Shepard finally moves, rolling onto his back with a heavy sigh, his gaze lost somewhere up in the shadows on the ceiling. “I was...disappointed. With what happened on Zorya and your...well, let’s just say ‘With what happened on Zorya’ and leave it at that.” His face clouds over with the memory and Zaeed can’t say as he blames him. He hadn’t been at his best, or clearest headed, that particular day. Shame still lurks deep in his gut at the choices he’d made, at the choices he’d forced Shepard to make, all with the ultimate result of Vido living another goddamn day. He hadn’t trusted Shepard enough with the truth beforehand, and later, when it was too late and he’d set in motion a series of events that left no one happy, he hadn’t trusted himself and his own motivations.

What he’d told Shepard then was true. Rage is an anesthetic that numbs everything. It made him into someone that twenty years ago he’d never thought he’d become: a person blinded to everything except the focus of his vengeance.

“I decided that who you were in the last twenty years, who you were on Zorya, none of it matters,” Shepard says, his voice soft, but decisive and full of conviction. “What matters is who you are today. Right now. And the man I see right next to me is someone that I can trust.” He turns and looks at Zaeed with a blinding sincerity and clarity that sends his heart speeding, his throat aching. Shepard’s eyes lock with his, that damned blueness mesmerizing in its intensity so that he can’t look away, drawn in like willing prey. “I don’t give a shit who you used to be. All I care about is what you’ve done today.” Shepard stretches out a hand to run the back of his finger down along the scar that runs the length of Zaeed’s face. “You’re a good man, Zaeed Massani. However much you try to hide it.”

It’s not often Zaeed Massani is at a loss for words, but he can’t think of a single thing to say. He reaches up to take Shepard’s hand, their fingers twining together. Zaeed draws their hands to his lips, pressing against the back of Shepard’s fingers, closing his eyes to that fierce, soul-knowing gaze. He swallows down the lump in his throat and opens his eyes. “You know that applies to you too,” he murmurs against Shepard’s warm skin.

Raw, unguarded emotion crosses Shepard’s face in flashes—surprise and fear and shock—his eyes wide, as if realizing that he could have that relief for himself as well. “Zaeed, I—”

“Don’t say anything. Just...let it be true for yourself. If you’re willing to give me that, then you’d bloody well be willing to give it to yourself. Cerberus didn’t ask what you wanted, but they gave you a second chance. Don’t waste it like I did. Fight, Tommy-Boy. Fight like hell to do what’s right. Everyone else can go to Hell.”

He’s surprised at how quickly Shepard moves to kiss him. He’s even more surprised at how gentle and sincere the kiss is, how his hand lays on his cheek, tender and protective, how he sighs on his mouth, how his lips linger as if he doesn’t want it to end. Zaeed doesn’t know what he did to deserve this sort of tender touch, doesn’t believe he deserves it, but he accepts it, wrapping Shepard in his arms and pulling him close, reveling in the feel of his vital, warm body all along the length of his own.

Maybe he'd kissed Bain’s mother this way, long ago, in a life long set aside. He’d fancied himself in love then, and who’s to say he hadn’t been in his own, selfish way. Ever since, he could never afford to become too personally invested for his own survival. Some had come close, but even then he’d held part of himself away, protected and secure in the knowledge that when they left, or died, he’d still be intact afterwards. Shepard’s kiss breaks him open, leaves him weak and shaking, a middle-aged newborn too dense and needy to stop. They kiss as if just discovering the act, devouring each other’s lips and tongues one moment, nibbling and featherlight and breathless the next. Shepard finally leans his forehead to Zaeed’s, soft breath painting Zaeed’s cheek, the air heavy in his nostrils as his breathing slows and his brow draws together with the seriousness of his emotions, blue eyes closed. A thumb brushes along his jaw, back and forth for innumerable heartbeats until Shepard sighs and rolls away, studying the shadows on the ceiling.

Zaeed waits him out, not at all shy about studying, and appreciating wholeheartedly, his naked form. His body, other than a fresh scar on his arm (from where a varren had bit through his armor) and hip (acid from Grunt’s goddamn thresher maw), is unmarked. He wonders what his body had been like before. What scars or tattoos are now missing, what body aches from old injuries have been blessedly cured by the magic of Cerberus’ implants. It’s a terrifying, and yet refreshing thought. To be given a second chance in a new body. He wonders if his skin felt tight in the beginning, like new clothes that hadn’t yet had a chance to soften.

“I don’t remember being in space,” Shepard finally says. He looks over to Zaeed, as if checking he has his attention so Zaeed nods, encouraging him on. “Over Alchera. I don’t remember.” He looks back up, tucking a hand behind his head. “I remember I had a fire extinguisher in my hand at one point.” His laugh is bitter, twisting his mouth into an ugly grimace, “As if that was going to do any good. I made it up to the cockpit. The roof of the CIC had been torn away and it was...god, it was so fucking beautiful. Alchera up above us, blue and white and so clear. And the stars behind. Everything was so still and calm. _Peaceful_. I remember thinking that I never really took the time to stop and admire views like that. Just took it for granted that any time I’d look out a view port I’d see something equally as wondrous. I remember wishing to have more time to be able to appreciate it.” He shakes his head, frowning. “But I don’t remember later. It seems strange. You’d think I’d remember dying…”

Warm fingers seek out Zaeed’s hand, grasping hold and hanging on in the resting silence that descends.

“It was raining,” Zaeed says. “On Omega. The day Vido shot me.”

Shepard turns to look at him, confused. “Raining?”

Zaeed laughs sharpish, knowing how crazy it sounds. “Yeah. I know. But I can feel it on my face, even now. Laying there, bleeding out, knowing it was the end. The side of my face was on fire from the pain, but the rain was soothing. I remember thinking how pleasant it felt. Always liked the rain.” He sighs, heavy with the memory of what he had thought at the time was the last few moments of his life. “Who’s to say if it was real or not? Who’s to say if it’s better to remember?”

Shepard considers him carefully and then he nods, his face relaxing into a sort of calm acceptance. He blinks, his eyes tired and drowsy, a shy smile turning up the corners of his mouth. “How do you feel about being the big spoon?”

Zaeed grins back, squeezing his hand. “Feel pretty goddamn good about it.”

Shepard turns his back to him and so Zaeed scoots closer, fitting their bodies together like they were made to go together, holding him close, feeling the rise and fall of his chest as they drift, not quite sleeping, not quite awake, too aware of what waits for them only a few short hours away.

He can live with this for now.

For now it’s enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading!
> 
> [I'm on the Tumblr.](https://threewhiskeylunch.tumblr.com/)


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